I make a conscious effort to suppress expectations prior to seeing a production, for fear they'll rise to the unattainable. With Genesius Guild's Ajax, however, I couldn't help it. I was so taken with last year's Andromache, performed in traditional period masks, that I was giddy with anticipation to see this summer's Greek-tragedy offering. And despite a few apparent stumbles over lines and one glaringly missed cue, director Don Wooten's effort did not disappoint. Saturday night's performance of Sophocles' piece captivated me with its creative execution.
If, at any point, you find your mind wandering during director Jeff Coussens' Genesius Guild presentation of The Taming of the Shrew - and trust me, that won't happen often - snapping back to attention is easy: Just check out the reactions of the men watching the show from stage right. You'll have no trouble spotting them, because one of the guys is drunk off his ass, and the other's wearing a dress.
I've enjoyed every Prenzie Players production I've seen to date, but perhaps none more so than Pericles, Prince of Tyre. That's actually odd to say, since William Shakespeare's tale of the world's luckiest unlucky prince - a seafarer who really should just avoid the sea altogether - wouldn't necessarily be called "fun." Director Andy Koski and his cast, however, manage to find the humor in the script and bring it to the forefront, embellishing it and even adding quips of their own, and elicited lots of laughs from Saturday night's audience.
I arrived at Genesius Guild's Friday-night performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream 10 minutes prior to the start of the show. What would otherwise be adequate arrival time for most of the Guild's performances proved a problem for this one - I could not find a seat. Other than a few spots on the not-comfortable-enough-for-more-than-two-hours bleachers, the seats were filled. With patrons already staking out spots on the surrounding lawn, I was forced to return to my car, grab a lawn chair, and jockey for a position to best view the night's performance.
If you're familiar with local theatre, you're likely familiar with the work of Michael King, whose area credits include performances for the Playcrafters Barn Theatre, the Prenzie Players, the Harrison Hilltop Theatre, (the now-defunct) Ghostlight Theatre, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, and - in numerous productions over the past five years - Rock Island's classical-theatre organization Genesius Guild.
While waiting for Sunday night's performance of Euripides' Andromache to begin, I contemplated the ways in which Genesius Guild is a Quad Cities treasure. Not that it's necessarily greater than any other local group, but it's definitely unique; performing in the open-air setting of Lincoln Park, Genesius Guild provides a theatrical experience unmatched in the area. In the case of Andromache, the play's genre is also exclusive to Genesius Guild, as the organization the only local theatre group regularly performing Greek tragedy.
Following Saturday's presentation of Thesmophoriazusae - this summer's annual Genesius Guild send-up of an ancient-Greek comedy - I had the chance to say hi to its adaptor/director, Don Wooten. I congratulated the Guild founder on the sensationally silly 75 minutes that he and his cast had just delivered, and during our conversation, another patron came up to Wooten and told him that this Aristophanes goof was the most enjoyable season-ender she'd seen in decades.
Michael King has appeared in so many Genesius Guild productions, and has delivered such consistently outstanding performances, that it's easy to take the actor/director's copious talents for granted. Yet the experience of watching him as the scheming Richard III in the Guild's Henry the Sixth: Richard, Duke of York - the concluding half of director Don Wooten's two-part presentation of Henry plays - is so startling, exhilarating, and fresh that it's almost as though you're seeing the actor for the very first time. Stage work as profoundly inspired as King's is a night of unforgettable theatre unto itself. Then again, very little about this production isn't a thrill.
Even if you didn't know that Genesius Guild's Henry the Sixth: The Contention was an amalgamation of Shakespeare's Henry VI: Parts I and II - with Part III opening on July 17 - and didn't know that the production was directed and adapted by Guild founder Don Wooten, it's likely that your first glimpse at the program would be enough to intimidate you.Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
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